Two final things before I sign off for the weekend:
1) Thanks to John for solving my Rain Today problem. (Rain Today history: Too long and boring to go into, but basically, it’s an inside joke.) The solution’s in the source code, if you’re interested.
2) I am 46 years old, and it finally happened, not 20 minutes ago. For the first time in my life, I stepped on a bee. Barefoot. Actually, I think it was a wasp (yellow jacket), but now that it’s happened, I know that all the other times I thought I’d been stung by our stinger-carrying yellow-striped friends were just love taps. God almighty, but this hurts. My foot feels like it’s simmering in a pot of hot lead.
Once, years ago, I gave the speech at the Allen County Beekeepers’ Association Harvest Banquet, and mentioned to the group that to my knowledge, I’d never been stung. This caused a murmur to rumble through the crowd exactly like the ones in old movies. “You mean you don’t know your sensitivity?” bellowed one geezer from the crowd. “No,” I said. More murmurs. Then they gave me two pounds of honey as a thank-you gift. Nice guys.
Also, maybe you’re wondering: Perhaps the Washington Post recently ran a lengthy essay on getting bitten by critters/insects/what-have-you in summer? Why, you’d be right. It’s here.
My foot is killing me.
Mindy said on September 2, 2004 at 9:21 pm
Oh, boy! Rain Today returns!
The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella
But mostly on the just because
The unjust stole the just’s umbrella
A blender full of margaritas will help that foot a bunch. An MD prescribed this to me in the emergency room after I’d stepped on broken glass. So there you are, doctor’s orders.
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deb said on September 2, 2004 at 9:45 pm
i can’t believe it. you’ve NEVER stepped on a bee? i used to go barefoot all summer long, and our front yard was full of clover. i stepped on more bees than i can count.
my kids have never stepped on a bee, either, and they are TERRIFIED of them. me, i don’t give a shit if they’re all over me when i’m in the garden, as long as they’re not crawling into my clothes.
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alex said on September 3, 2004 at 12:24 am
Some people have all the luck!
I always took satisfaction in knowing those fuckers would die after sticking me with their stingers. They were always getting lodged in my clothing or tangled in my hair, and I’ve been prone to allergic reactions since my early teens. Fortunately, I didn’t make the mistake my dad did not long ago�running over a nest with a mower. He’s still shell-shocked from that one.
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deb said on September 3, 2004 at 8:10 am
i’ll bet. we have friends whose schipperkes nosed their way into a hornets’ nest last summer, and they both died. dogs, killed by hornets!
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michaelg said on September 3, 2004 at 8:51 am
I think Mindy’s right here. A little self medicating is indicated. Mind your foot and have a nice weekend.
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danno said on September 3, 2004 at 10:09 am
Let’s see, stinging stories…yes,12 years old, Gulf of Mexico, jellyfish wrapped around my torso, felt like a hundred hornets stinging,was up puking all night long. I remember that one!!!!
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Linda said on September 3, 2004 at 1:18 pm
I stepped on a bee one summer just as we were leaving on a car trip to Arkansas to see my grandparents. My foot swelled so big I couldn’t get a shoe on, and my parents more or less were unsympathetic. Once we got to Grandpa and Granny’s, my grandpa immediately started soaking my foot in Epsom Salts and the best part was that he yelled at my dad for not doing that sooner! LOL I still laugh to this day at how funny, but strange, it was as a kid to see my dad get yelled at by his dad.
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Miss Beth said on September 3, 2004 at 3:28 pm
I have to jump into the bug-bite pool. My boyfriend and I were moving (U-Haul, upteen boxes, the whole nine yards) two weekends ago. We were to pick up the truck at 9:00AM sharp. At 6:45AM, he gets stung in the leg by a bee while walking the dog. By 7:20AM, I have packed him into the car, slathered in baking soda paste and high on Benedryl, and we are racing to the hosiptal because he is swelling like a balloon. It was crazy!! At one point, he could hardly see because his face had blown up. And the whole time, he keeps saying, “Ask them if they can take a picture. I wanna see how I look.”
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Lex said on September 7, 2004 at 12:01 pm
Was visiting cousins in Connecticut one summer the only time I ever stepped on a yellow jacket. Turned out they’d built themselves a nest in an underground tunnel. So my cousin and I, we poured about a gallon of gasoline down the tunnel, followed by a string of firecrackers on a long fuse. Fire in the hole, indeed. But then, I never HAVE understood the virtue of a “proportionate response.”
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